


Thursday Night at Mercer's

by inadistantworld



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, House Party, Party, passing the torch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 06:03:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13518078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inadistantworld/pseuds/inadistantworld
Summary: Matthew Mercer used to throw a party every Thursday night with his friends. They graduated last year and it's now the first party Matt's thrown since they left. The good news is that there seems to be a group of new kids willing to cause as much mayhem as the (in)famous Vox Machina did before.





	Thursday Night at Mercer's

**Author's Note:**

> Two things sparked this fic. One: John Mulaney talking about crazy shit at a house party. Two: Those classic DM feels of giving your friends a place to play and them burning it to the ground. And you love them for every second of it.  
> Longer than expected, not as good as I wanted, but I had a lot of fun writing this and thinking of all kinds of trouble these guys could get up to. Also I love mixing college aus, throwbacks to the old campaign, and a touch of meta. Thanks for reading!

Almost every story is told the same way. There is the setup, the story, and the end. This story is not different in the basic layout, but there is no single protagonist, which means there is no single story. Instead, there are seven. Individually there are holes and things don’t make sense, but together you can start to see the big picture of what happened one night when Matthew Mercer threw a party.

 

3 days into their college education and 3 days of knowing each other (except for Jester and Fjord who had met at an accepted students tour a month earlier and Molly and Yasha who had met in the travelling carnival they had been a part of for the last couple years) people started talking about a party. Apparently this guy, Matthew Mercer, lived a few blocks away in a house he used to share with his friends. And apparently the guy threw really great parties. Well. In the past. He hadn’t thrown one in a while, his friends had graduated (Mercer was one of those people who would probably be in college forever, so it wasn’t really that big a deal that his friends graduated before him. He was happy for them, but it had taken the wind out of him for a few months) and the parties had stopped.

This would be the first party since they graduated and everyone was invited. Including three day old freshmen. With seemingly everyone on campus so excited and telling stories (once some gnome named Scanlan Shorthalt made everyone look like cows for the entire night. People said that there was a bear at an impromptu pie eating contest, though nobody could seem to agree on if it was a real bear or a gay bear. This guy named Tary who was an engineering student built a robot that could write and draw and may have walked in on some…intimate moments) and since nobody else had anything better to do that Thursday night (other than perhaps study or go to bed early for their Friday classes) they decided this party might be worth checking out.

But nobody goes to a college party on time or sober, and especially not this group, so they began the first of many pregame rituals.

Mollymauk was a dangerous ‘bartender’ for them to start their night with. He stood over an ‘illegal’ blender (against the rules in the dorms) with a handful of bottles and turned around a few minutes later with cups for everyone. He passed them out with a wide smile that almost everyone trusted, despite the tiefling’s tail flicking back and forth like a cat’s. Nobody tasted the alcohol, but they learned rather quickly that didn’t mean there wasn’t any.

While they drank Yasha surfed the internet on her phone, Beau tried in vain to flirt with her but didn’t get much of a response until Yasha said “If I let you lay on my lap will you shut up?” And Beau did.

Caleb didn’t really seem like he wanted to go, he kept talking about studying and books and the library, but peer pressure has always been an effective tool and he was currently telling Nott very seriously that she had to be on her best behavior, the school let very few goblins in and they would be looking for any chance to throw her out. Especially with her…record.

Jester was picking out her outfit for the night, she had gotten so excited and had actually been the one to first suggest going to the party. When everyone said they would go she immediately went to find something new to wear and was trying to get Fjord to help her pick out her jewelry. If half-orcs could blush Molly believed he might have.

Fjord was trying to help pick out jewelry for Jester to wear, though she didn’t seem to need the help considering she was doing most of the talking and making her decisions halfway through, but he was also being responsible. He was ordering an Uber which would be there in a few minutes, was making sure everyone wore a jacket (which Beau fought valiantly and eventually won), and after seeing the look in Molly’s eyes when he handed Fjord the drink he had taken a few sips and set it down.

And when the Uber came Fjord loaded everyone up into it and they were off to the mysterious Matthew Mercer’s house.

The party was already going when they pulled up. People were out in the yard with red solo cups (“Just like in the movies!” Jester had said with a little too much excitement Yasha thought), music was pumping through the house, and inside looked just like one would image a college party. Packed with people, the smell of booze filling every inch of space, almost too loud to be enjoyable, and like it was on the verge of terrible things happening. All that was left were people who would set those terrible things in motion.

The seven newly made friends looked at each other, then looked back to the house, and without saying anything they started to go their own way.

Which is where their one story becomes seven.

Before we begin though, the layout of the house is important. Though house is putting it lightly considering how large it actually was. First, the house was three stories. Well, two stories and an attic. The first floor had a living room, a sitting room, a large kitchen, a dining room, a laundry room, and a bathroom, two bedrooms, along with a hallway or two. The sitting room had a door that led out to one half of the backyard and the laundry room had a door to the other. The backyard had been separated by a fence for about as long as the house had been around, and it wasn’t really in half, more like two thirds were divided from the other third. The smaller section was just grass, a large tree off to the side, and one of those swings that was really a bench. The other two thirds was a pool. How the pool was shaped doesn’t really matter, but it was deep and it was below the balcony of one of the bedrooms, which does.

The second floor was less populated during these parties but by no means empty. Up here were _six_ bedrooms, a study, two bathrooms, and a room with a pool table and armchairs. Only one of the bedrooms had a balcony and Matthew’s bedroom was the only one that was locked. The attic could be reached by opening what looked like a closet. It wasn’t meant to be hidden or anything, but they old owners just didn’t like the look of a door in the ceiling with a string hanging from it, so instead it was a door with a set of stairs that led up to it. This was, thankfully, how the attic had mostly been passed over during these parties, because who would go looking in a linens closet?

 

Caleb was not the kind of person who did things at parties, he was the kind of person things happened around. But that doesn’t mean he sat in his chair and watched the sitting room all night. In fact, despite the kind of broody appearance, people seemed to really enjoy having him around. The cat definitely helped.

“So you’re a wizard?” A girl was looking at him with wide eyes. She had actually taken a seat next to Fjord, which was understandable because he had that Southern drawl and was one of the few very attractive people at this party, and he had no idea. The half-orc was looking at Caleb with an equal intensity, which Caleb had come to terms with after their first class. Fjord had always been fascinated by magic but had only recently picked it up himself.

“Yes, I am,” Caleb smiled weakly and cast his eyes around the room to look for Nott. She had been there a few moments ago but was now no where to be seen. Which was…disconcerting.

“Wow, that’s a difficult major. What’s your minor going to be?” She asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” Caleb answered as he gave up looking for Nott.

Fjord leaned forward, “And uh, where did you learn magic? You said you’ve been doing it a while,” Fjord’s voice was smooth and the girl next to him visibly swooned, which Caleb completely understood.

“I am self-taught actually. I was not even going to come here but, well I figured it was the best chance I would have to learn what I want to learn.”

The girl made a face. “Self-taught? Well, can you do much then? I mean, how much can you learn without any professional training?” Caleb didn’t miss Fjord’s deep frown and how he shifted away from the girl. He also looked ready to defend Caleb, which was kind but unnecessary, admissions had asked him the same thing.

“I can do quite a few things, but most of them are not fit for parties,” he smiled and then said, “But I can make a cat appear,” and when he snapped his fingers an orange cat appeared beside him.

The girl cooed and reached out to pet the cat. “What’s his name?”

“Frumpkin,” Caleb scratched the cat behind his ear.

Others came up to see Frumpkin because one of the most well-known rules is that if there’s a cat at a party, the people will flock. It was not a rule Caleb knew and, after a time he created a handful of tiny lights that flittered around to catch the cat’s interest and he slipped away to find somewhere quieter (maybe even a place to read one of the books he had in his coat).

When he walked into the living room he had to stop in the doorway to try and comprehend the scene in front of him. It looked like most parties, people milling about and drinking. People were doing their mingling and drinking while avoiding a shattered coffee table in the middle of the room.

Caleb turned to someone beside him and asked, “Does the host—uh Matthew I believe?—know about his table?”

The guy chuckled and said, “Nobody’s seen Matt all night. He’s not really the party type, just likes to host.” He must have seen Caleb’s worried face because he said, “But he’s used to this kind of thing, his best friends for the last couple years did all but burn the place down.”

“Right…” Caleb took that as his cue to leave.

Someone rushed passed him with their friend in tow saying, “This hottie took him upstairs to ‘read his fortunre’!” Which sounded like a very Molly thing to do.

Caleb wandered around the first floor for a while, even taking a peak outside to see if it was any quieter out there (it was not) before he ventured upstairs. On the way up he passed what looked a picture of what he assumed was supposed to be the group of friends who used to live here, but instead there were headshots of Nicholas Cage glued over their faces.

Caleb found a room with a pool table, surprisingly empty, and sat in one of the armchairs off to the side. He opened up his book and got about four pages in before he heard someone do what almost sounded like a battle cry, a faint splash, and cheering. He sighed heavily and shut his book. He secretly thought that he shouldn’t have come at all, tucked his book back into his jacket, and stood up. Nott had been gone a little too long for his comfort and she was likely neck deep in trouble by now.

In his search for Nott he instead saw a woman crying over a plate of spaghetti, more pictures of Nicholas Cage, someone talking about a woman who drank like half a keg by herself, and saw Fjord walking around with a vase tucked under his arm. He was standing in the sitting room with his hands on his hips and Frumpkin on his shoulder, not really sure where else to look for her, when a woman pushed passed him and opened the door to the backyard.

“I SAID NO FIRE EATING IN—” and the door slammed shut behind her, cutting her off.

Caleb decided he and Nott were leaving this very moment and called out, “Nott!” Drawing out her name like a parent or a friend trying to save another friend’s ass.

 

Beau’s story is really only half of a story, for reasons that will make sense at the end but are probably predictable now.

The first problem was believing Molly made weak drinks and tossing them back like they were nothing. And Molly let it happen with a knowing smirk because what could be funnier than seeing Beau get smashed?

Upon arrival she immediately went to the kitchen and grabbed a beer. Then, after half a second of debating, she grabbed a second. She was almost finished with the first one when she got to the living room and, though she didn’t realize it, she was not exactly clear headed.

The second part of Beauregard’s night was that she was not the only one prone to making rash decisions. Some frat guy, probably named Chad or something, was talking like he was hot shit. Which wasn’t terrible, not on its own. It was almost expected, it’s what frat boys were known for. The real issue was when he said, “You see that girl with the two different eyes? Black hair that goes to white? I’d love a piece of that. Bet she’d be worth the effort.”

And _that_ was not okay. Even if Beau didn’t have a newly forming crush on Yasha she wasn’t a fan of people talking about girls like that, especially her friends. And so Beau downed her drink and popped the top off her second and said, “Hey! You better watch your mouth!” And the words weren’t exactly slurred but they were not sober.

“Yeah, or what?” The dude laughed and nudged his friends, “You gonna hit me or something?”

Beau’s drink was forgotten when she lunged forward. But due to the effects of the drink she didn’t notice the coffee table separating her and _Chad_. When Beau’s shins hit the table she fell forward and landed on it. Hard. And the table snapped and broke under her. To be fair it wasn’t the best quality.

“Ow,” she groaned and got up to her knees. She looked at the spilled beer and splinters everywhere with a disappointed look and said, “Aw man, I mean. Fuck.” Then looked up at _Chad_. “Fucking—look what you made me do.” She stood up and dusted herself off and stepped up to him, which didn’t look impressive at all, she was about nipple height on the guy. “Now you really gotta go.”

“What? You gonna break another table or something?”

Beau punched him in the gut once and when he grabbed at it in surprise she laced her fingers behind his head and yanked his head down while she brought her knee up to meet his nose in the middle. She felt the soft crack of his nose and heard the immediate cry of pain that followed. She stepped back and let him hold his face. “Yeah, or something. And I’ll give you a fair warning, that girl hears you talking like that and she’ll do worse to you than this. So like, might be a good idea to leave.” Beau reached down to pick up her beer and frowned when she saw it was indeed empty and soaking into the carpet.

She went back to the kitchen for another without making sure Chad and his buddies showed themselves out, Beau had a good feeling she’d gotten her point across.

After what happened in the living room she wasn’t really sure where to go. She wandered through to the sitting room and saw a bunch of girls and Fjord in the corner with an orange cat playing with small floating lights but no Caleb. And just as she was about to find a more exciting room a girl ran by, tearing off her shirt, and yelling to her friend who was following closely behind, “Hurry! Before the pool gets super crowded!”

And then Beau went upstairs.

Beau had seen quite a few movies when she was growing up, and she had done her research on college parties through bad college movies before she showed up. So when she heard about the pool she had a strong feeling on what she should do next. She did make sure to drink another beer before she actually set her plan into motion.

The bedroom she walked into was everything she could hope for. She did walk in on Molly in the middle of…something. He said it was a fortune telling but the boy on the bed with him didn’t look like he was looking to hear his future. But Beau didn’t really care what Mollymauk was wanting, instead she had other priorities. Like the beautiful fucking balcony across the room.

She threw the glass door open and stepped out onto the small but still nice balcony. She noticed etched into the wood railing were the words “Mr. and Mrs. ‘ahlia” which didn’t sound like a name but that wasn’t any of her business.

She checked her positioning and, seemingly satisfied, climbed up onto the railing, took a deep breath, and yelled, “Cannonball!” And jumped.

Cannonballs were not an uncommon occurrence at this house, but Beau’s was good enough to make it into stories about the party for the next few weeks. Something she would be quite proud of, especially considering what else happened that night.

She stayed in the pool for a while, playing games of chicken and generally fucking around, when someone screamed and pointed down into the pool. “Someone took a fucking shit in the pool!” And in seconds almost everyone, including Beau, was scrambling to get out.

Beau looked down and sure enough, there was a piece of shit at the bottom of the pool.

Deciding that was a sign to move on, Beau went back to the kitchen, made herself a very strong drink, and went to the living room. Someone across the room yelled her name and when she looked up she saw a black and white vase sailing through the air towards her. “Yeah!” She yelled and caught it with relative ease. She hurled it back to the guy but a large, green hand came out of no where and intercepted the vase. Fjord gave her an almost disappointed look (but Beau swore she saw some amusement in it) and walked away with the vase.

“Aw c’mon!” Beau shouted after him but he didn’t come back. So Beau grabbed another drink and went back to the second floor. She went into the room with a pool table, which only had a couple making out in one of the chairs, and promptly laid down on the pool table and went to sleep.

 

Nott’s story comes next because it is where other stories start to bleed together and also because when Fjord said the needed to leave, Nott was pretty sure it was her fault.

Caleb had told her to be on her best behavior because she was already on thin ice with the deans, but he also gave her such a good opportunity that she couldn’t exactly pass up. Especially since Caleb and Nott had done it so many times before, it just seemed like he was asking her to go for it.

So when he was talking to Fjord and the girl about magic Nott pulled her hood up and tried to blend in with the people around her and go unnoticed. She felt like she was doing a good job of it. Especially when Caleb pulled out Frumpkin and everyone was suddenly very focused on the cat and not on their wallets.

Nott left with three rings, a nice keychain (she ditched the keys), a pretty bracelet, and some gold coins but not many people brought much money with them. When someone reached to fiddle with their bracelet that they no longer had, Nott decided it was time to find somewhere else to hang out before people started noticing her.

Upstairs there were a lot of doors, which meant there were a lot of options. Most of the rooms were almost empty though, which was not what Nott had hoped for. She did find some nice things. A set of earrings (which she immediately swapped out with her old ones) a really cool knife, and a few other small things.

And while looking for another bedroom, hopefully the one Matt used which might have more in it, Nott opened a door that led to some stairs. And that has always been a very promising sign. So Nott went upstairs to the attic and started rifling around in boxes up there. She found an ostentatious hat that she left since it wasn’t very easy to hide, a few clocks that were in numerous pieces, a book on the Raven Queen, a small statue of Sarenrae, and the most interesting of all was a shoe box of pictures.

They all had the same people in them (and some of them had a robot), a few of them were just casual and others were much more intense. It seemed like they had a cannonball competition that was crazier than anything Nott could imagine.

Nott looked over her shoulder just to be sure nobody was there and on an impulse she tucked a lot of the pictures in random pockets she had. She closed the box again, now that it was missing about half of its pictures, and walked back down. She couldn’t say why she took them, they weren’t particularly valuable and she wasn’t doing it out of spite or anything, but she liked the pictures. Everyone was smiling, everyone looked like they were happy to be together, none of it looked fake. They looked like a family. And that was something Nott wanted. She had Caleb, who was the best person she had ever met, who she would follow to the ends of the earth if that’s where he wanted to go, he was who she considered her closest family. But these pictures had something she wanted, which could have been why she pocketed such a large amount of them.

She went back down stairs when she smelled something delicious. And when she found her way to the kitchen she saw Fjord standing over the stove with a stack of plates beside him. He smiled broadly at Nott when she walked up and passed a plate of spaghetti to one of the girls who had walked up.

“Hungry?” He asked.

Nott’s smile showed way too many sharp, crooked teeth, but Fjord, a proper gentleman, didn’t comment or make a face. He handed her a plate with a heaping pile of pasta and Nott checked the sitting room for Caleb but didn’t see him, so she went to the living room.

Nott found a place to sit and start eating while she observed the room around her. Mollymauk, who was impossible to miss with all of the shiny bits on his horns and lavish clothes, walked through on his phone. “Right, right, don’t worry about it, I’ve got it taken care of, nothing is going to happen to it. And now we’re even after that—” Nott lost the rest of what he said as he walked into another room.

Someone sat next to her and Nott tried not to look up in case they wanted to talk to her about where their things went. Instead of accusations though, the woman said, “Someone shit in the pool.”

Nott looked up and saw Yasha sitting beside her. “O-oh. That’s—”

“Yeah. You seen Beau?”

Nott shook her head as she tried to take in the rough transition. “Y-yeah?” Nott had found her after she came down from the attic. “She was upstairs.” She had been wandering around the rooms and dripping wet. Probably from the pool.

Yasha nodded. Gave her untouched plate of spaghetti to Nott, and walked away, pulling a Yasha as they called it.

Almost as soon as she left Nott saw a familiar blue tiefling walk by with a telltale spring in her step. “Nott!” Jester smiled when she saw the little goblin and skipped over. “Enjoying the party?”

Nott laughed a little nervously, “Yes.”

“Are those new earrings?” Jester’s eyes twinkled and Nott touched them and nodded.

“Yes, they are. I found them.” Jester and Caleb were the only two who really encouraged Nott’s habit of taking things, the others didn’t really try to stop Nott but she couldn’t show off her new things quite as often.

And Jester liked to not only encourage Nott but help.

Jester held up a stack of small circles of paper, “I’ve been busy too.”

She showed Nott the pictures of Nicholas Cage and Nott looked around and spotted at least three of them already taped or glued around the room. Nott waved for Jester to lean in and when the tiefling did she pulled a handful of the pictures from her attic out to show her.

Jester gasped and looked up at her with bright eyes. “I have an idea!”

Nott was about to say something when Fjord’s large green hand grasped Jester’s shoulder and he said, “We’ve got to go. Right now.”

Nott felt a cold sinking in her stomach when she realized that someone probably caught on to her.

 

Jester loved parties because they were the best places to have the most fun and the best pranks were born in places where nobody could figure out who did it. So Jester was very excited to go to her first college party. She believed things would only get better in college.

When they got there she made her way to the kitchen in hopes of finding pastries or cookies or just something good to eat. She was severely disappointed and to offset that feeling she opened the dishwasher, turned all the bowls and pots over so that they would fill with water, and started the dishwasher.

Most of the party was downstairs, which meant there was plenty of fun to be had upstairs. She didn’t go looking for the study, but when she found it she knew it was exactly where she wanted to be. First, because it was right there and would give her time to think of something else, she rearranged the bookshelf. She turned books around, moved them to new places, dog eared a few pages, put some under the chairs and up on top of the bookshelves.

When she finished she went to the computer. Her first thought was porn, something to do with porn, but she couldn’t really follow through with the idea. Instead she thought of something ridiculous. Nicholas Cage’s face.

She printed an obscene number of copies of his face and as they came off the printer she started cutting them out. When that was finished she pulled out the stack of paper from the printer and drew dicks randomly in the pile, that way it would be a total surprise when someone was printing out homework or something and there would be a giant (and well-drawn) dick on it. She giggled and grabbed a roll of tape and began hiding Nic Cage’s face around the room.

She stuck in the pages of books, underneath the table, and over a picture of a large family with brown hair standing in front of a sign that said “Whitestone Lumber”. Jester much preferred this awkward face over the serious and distant looks of the actual people.

Jester set about the entire second floor doing this. She hid him in the medicine cabinet, behind doors, in closets, under rugs, in lampshades, under the sheets on beds, and anywhere else that caught her attention. One room was locked so she just slid a picture under the door. There was another bedroom where Molly was in the middle of showing off a few of his tarot cards.

“You are doing a card reading!” Jester sat on the bed next to the man Molly was with.

Molly cleared his throat and flashed a smile at the man, “Yes, I am.”

“Do me next!” Jester looked as eager as she did the first day, still completely unaware of the tricks and lying that went into fortune telling.

Molly didn’t try to hide the smirk, “Another time perhaps. But right now,” the lavender tiefling looked back at the man who was pretending not to think this whole thing was awkward, “I’m in the middle of something.”

Jester looked back and forth between them and her eyes grew wide, “Ohhh.” She gave an obvious over the top wink to Molly, “Right.”

He laughed and said, “Why don’t you go to the pool?” Molly’s red eyes seemed to grow even darker when he said, “Beau’s already down there.”

“Yes, I will go do that. Right now.” She winked again and stood up. On her way to the door she stopped and said, “Oh wait,” and pulled out a few of the headshots and taped a couple up in the room. Molly looked amused more than anything but the other man looked positively bewildered. She waved goodbye and shut the door behind her and went downstairs.

Beau was indeed out in the pool. She was sitting on someone’s shoulders and going head to head with someone sitting on another person’s shoulders, trying to push each other into the water. And while Jester watched she reached into the wrong pocket to grab a Cage Face and instead grabbed a candy bar she had forgotten about. She looked at it and she smiled.

She unwrapped the candy bar, a Baby Ruth to be exact, and as she walked past the pool she dropped the candy into the water and went on her way without looking back. She instead went back to hiding pictures all over the house. Fjord even helped her reach some of the cabinets that were up high. He offered to put them up there for her but she asked him to just lift her up so she could do it herself.

She was skipping through the living room when she saw Nott sitting in the corner with two plates of Fjord’s spaghetti.

“Nott!” Jester stood in front of the goblin with her hands behind her back and a wide smile. Her tail flicked back and forth like a cat’s and the little silver bell at the end jingled quietly. “Enjoying the party?”

Nott looked down at her plate and laughed, “Yes.”

The gold in Nott’s ear flashed and Jester asked with a knowing voice, “Are those new earrings?”

“Yes, they are. I found them,” she answered as she reached up to touch them.

“I’ve been busy too,” Jester pulled out the remaining pictures of Nicholas Cage.

Nott waved her closer and Jester leaned in eagerly. When Nott showed her the pictures of random people she said, “I have an idea!”

Unfortunately she didn’t get any farther than that because right then a hand grabbed her shoulder and she looked over to see Fjord. “We’ve got to go. Right now.”

Yasha, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, joined the conversation. “What’s going on?”

“Cops,” Fjord answered with a rough edge to his voice. “We gotta hurry.”

Yasha suddenly said, “I left something on the roof,” and started booking it back towards the stairs.

Fjord didn’t wait for anything else and instead started pulling Jester along behind him and Jester in turn grabbed Nott’s hand and started pulling her along too while Nott called Caleb’s name.

 

Yasha was a mysterious woman, and as such there were more unknowable things about her than any of the others. Not that the others didn’t have secrets, for instance Fjord was the only half-orc any of them had ever met without tusks, but it was only day three of knowing each other so there was an understandable amount of mystery to new friends. Yasha exceeded that in ways nobody but Molly understood, and only Molly knew because he had worked in the carnival with Yasha and he knew two things. 1) Yasha didn’t like people knowing much about her, it was one of the reasons they got along. Molly didn’t ask questions and neither did she so only information they wanted was out there. 2) Sometimes Yasha would just leave. She would be there one moment and gone the next. Affectionately termed “Yashaing”.

Yasha was in the house for about twelve minutes before she decided that she needed to Yasha her way out of it.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like the people, that she saw things brewing that would lead to the cops coming, or that she didn’t want to be around anymore. It was that when she went looking for beer it was mostly in cans and what wasn’t in cans was still terrible. There was some liquor, there were some things to make mixed drinks, she could have probably made a Jack and Coke, but only with shitty Jack and Pepsi. And Yasha didn’t go to this party so she could drink piss from a can.

So Yasha disappeared.

When she came back she was carrying a keg on her shoulder. Nobody had seen her leave but her arrival was met with cheers, as is the arrival of anyone with more beer.

As she walked up to the front door she noticed a light purple tiefling who was impossible to miss off to the side. He was waving a few other faces from the carnival back behind the house and they were carrying a large and familiar set of boxes. Mollymauk waved to Yasha and she nodded back.

It seemed Molly had called in that favor after all.

Yasha didn’t stay outside to see it finished though, it wasn’t really her thing, but this beer was.

She set it down in the closest room to her, which happened to be the sitting room. People started surrounding it and holding out their cups, acting like they were going to get some. A few people complimented Yasha, patting her on the back and saying thanks for the beer.

At some point she had to put her foot down.

The crowd watched in awe as Yasha began to drink. It wasn’t like a drinking game to see who could drink the most, nor was it like someone trying to get wasted or like she was drinking away her problems. The woman drank like it was a sport. Like it was her profession. She drank like she was doing it out of spite.

People would spread rumors, that she drank half a keg without taking a breath and walked away like she was totally sober, that she drank the whole keg and crushed it like a beer can, that she drank most of it and poured the rest on the ground so nobody else could have it.

In reality she drank a lot and when she had her fill she shouldered the keg again and left with it. She decided to hide it on the roof, because it seemed unlikely that anyone would go there. She figured it would be the best place to keep something safe, at least for a while.

But with nothing else to do she wandered around quietly. A few people tried to start conversations, one guy tried to hit on her, but Yasha was not a very talkative person and to be quite honest she didn’t like these people, so why would she waste the energy?

When she got to the pool she found it completely empty, which was not what she had expected out of this kind of party. She did hear someone standing nearby with their friends say, “Why would anyone shit in a pool?”

Yasha looked down into it and saw what they were talking about. She wouldn’t have bet her life on it, but she had seen Jester pocket a candy bar before they left and she wasn’t so sold on it being shit rather than chocolate. But she also wouldn’t want to be the one to find out.

But since she was still outside she looked up when she heard cheering on the other side of the fence.

“Holy shit! I haven’t been on once of these since I was a kid!”

“Fuck YEAH!”

And she could see the bright red and yellow begin to rise over the fence and decided, before it got even more annoying out there, she would go back inside.

When she got back inside everyone had spaghetti. People were just walking around with pasta. There was a girl drunk crying into her pasta. And fuck if spaghetti didn’t sound good.

Yasha found her way to the kitchen and saw Fjord making another plate. “Yasha,” he smiled and held a plate out to her, “Spaghetti?”

She took the plate from him without saying anything and went to find a place to sit. What she found was Nott, which seemed as good a place to sit as any.

Nott didn’t look up at first, which suit Yasha fine, and while Yasha didn’t usually mind awkward silence she felt that she probably should say something. “Someone shit in the pool.”

Nott looked up bewildered, and a little bit disgusted, “O-oh. That’s—”

Yasha immediately regretted starting the conversation. “Yeah. You seen Beau?”

Nott looked taken aback but said, “Y-yeah? She was upstairs.”

Yasha nodded and passed her plate to Nott, as if it was a reward, and walked off.

Yasha found her without much trouble. Asleep on the pool table with a jacket that wasn’t hers draped over her. Which didn’t seem like the best place to be at all. And Yasha had promised them when they met, granted it was three days ago, that she would make sure nothing bad happened.

Yasha lifted the smaller girl up and slung her over her shoulder and took her to the roof where she had left her keg. A place to keep things safe.

She laid Beau out beside the keg and then went back downstairs, feeling comfortable in the fact that Beau wouldn’t be disturbed. As she began to go through the window again she noticed a flash of flame on the ground below, which meant their friends had started showing off with the fire breathing act. Hopefully they had gotten the kinks worked out.

When Yasha found Nott again she was with Jester and Fjord, and Fjord did not look happy.

“What’s going on?”

Fjord looked at her with a rare determination, not fear or worry but a strength that Yasha almost admired. Especially when he said, “Cops. We gotta hurry.”

Yasha nodded once and then said, “I left something on the roof,” and without saying anything else she turned and ran back up the stairs.

She slung Beau over her shoulder again, looked at her keg wistfully, but left it. By the time she got back downstairs people were running panicked and yelling. There were lights outside the window and everyone was trying to get out of there.

Caleb was standing in the midst of it all, “Nott!” He shouted, pushing someone near him away.

She grabbed Caleb’s arm and started dragging him out, “Fjord’s got her!” She said gruffly and dragged him to a less populated room, “Now let’s go!” She let go of Caleb, grabbed something heavy on the table beside her, and shattered the window. She climbed through it and didn’t wait to see if Caleb followed her through.

She saw a familiar group running down the street, well a mostly familiar group. Two sets of horns outlined in the silhouettes, a much smaller figure in a hoodie, and a taller broad man, only Fjord also had someone slung over his shoulder like Yasha did.

Behind Yasha and Caleb the flames suddenly shot up into the air and there was quite a bit of screaming, which Yasha hoped would help delay the cops while they made their escape.

 

Fjord enjoyed drinking of course, but they were three days into their college experience and he had spent his whole life trying to get there. If it had been someone that they knew or a party with a little less of an infamous reputation Fjord probably would have had more to drink, but a strange house that they knew almost nothing about with a host who didn’t seem to even show up to his own party, well Fjord resigned himself to being the older brother for the night.

In all actuality he was more of a dad.

He started his night talking to Caleb. He wasn’t sure when or how this girl had joined in the conversation but she seemed very interested in it, so he just let her sit next to him and talk.

“So you’re a wizard?” She asked and Fjord smiled because this was exactly where he wanted the conversation to go.

Caleb smile but he looked almost pained by it, “Yes, I am.” He looked around and Fjord had a feeling it was for Nott, he had been worried about her coming and getting in some trouble. It had taken a lot out of the group to tell him everything would be fine.

“Wow, that’s a difficult major. What’s your minor going to be?” Fjord almost said that’s not how it goes, that he had to choose a school it wasn’t called a minor, but he let it slide.

“I’m not sure yet,” Caleb said but Fjord cocked his head to the side because it seemed like Caleb had been leaning to Transmutation for the last few days. Perhaps he hadn’t fully settled on it.

Fjord cleared his throat and asked, “And uh, where did you learn magic? You said you’ve been doing it a while.”

“I am self-taught actually. I was not even going to come here but, well I figured it was the best chance to learn what I want to learn.”

Fjord was going to ask another question about that when the girl cut him off. “Self-taught? Well, can you do much then? I mean, how much can you learn without any professional training?”

Fjord didn’t like that kind of tone and he shifted so they weren’t shoulder to shoulder anymore. He went to say something but this time Caleb stopped him. “I can do quite a few things, but most of them are not fit for parties.” He smiled and held his hand up, “But I can make a cat appear.” He snapped his fingers and Frumpkin popped into this plane.

The girl, all her doubts forgotten, reached forward to pet him, “What’s his name?”

Fjord watched Caleb’s fingers scratch the cat behind the ears as he said, “Frumpkin.”

Caleb didn’t stay much longer after that, he looked overwhelmed and slipped away in the chaos of everyone trying to pet Fumpkin (more than a few cried as they did so). Fjord stayed until Molly walked up, a warm and tricky smile playing along his lips.

“I thought I’d offer you a private reading if you wanted one.”

Molly’s shirt showed more than it covered and Fjord made an effort to look anywhere but the places where Molly’s outfit drew the eyes. There was a liquid tease to his voice that even Fjord couldn’t miss. “I—no I think I’ll pass.” Fjord had seen through Molly’s tricks before and decided whatever Molly was really planning he should probably pass on.

Molly shrugged and walked away, off to find someone else to tease or pull one over on, Fjord wasn’t too sure on which.

Fjord left Frumpkin with the dancing lights and people who were fawning over him. Fjord walked around the house, looking for the people he had come with to make sure they weren’t setting things on fire or getting into fights. It seemed like were constantly missing each other because Fjord never knew Beau did in fact get into a fight, Nott was stealing family photos, or that Jester was causing mayhem (though he had a good feeling about that last one). The only time he ran into someone else was when he intercepted Beau’s flying vase, and then he decided that it was not worth dealing with.

Eventually he gave up trying to keep an eye on everyone and instead figured he’d help anyone who came looking. And with this many people drunk off their ass there was one sure fire way to help, no matter what the issue was.

Food.

Fjord assessed the kitchen, mostly cleaned out at this point, but there were a few boxes of pasta and some sauce he could heat up and some seasonings in the pantry. So Fjord set to work, and when he didn’t find a pot he wanted in the cabinets he checked the dishwasher. Where there was exactly the pot he wanted. Filled with water.

Either this Matthew Mercer had no idea how to do dishes or Jester had beat him to the kitchen.

Fjord made as much pasta as he could, which was a lot of pasta. While the pasta was on the stove someone walked by saying that girl with the undercut was passed out on the pool table. It wasn’t malicious or anything, simply a joke, but Fjord still felt like it was a good idea to check on it.

Beau was indeed passed out on the pool table. He thought about moving her but there was nowhere in this place that was going to be any better than there, so he just shrugged off his jacket and covered her with it.

Nott was the first of his new friends to come get a plate. Then Yasha a little while later. Plenty of others came and got a plate of food, a weird amount of them stayed to talk to Fjord but eventually gave up whatever they were trying to get him to do. There was a lull in the wave of people looking for food (which was good because he was almost out). And through the window Fjord saw flashing red and blue lights.

If there was one thing Fjord was, it was quick to act.

Jester was his priority, of course he wanted to get the others out too, but if it came down to just getting Jester out of there or all of them going to jail, he was going to choose to get Jester out. Thankfully Jester wasn’t the only one he was going to get out.

Jester and Nott were standing next to each other, talking, probably plotting. Fjord grabbed Jester’s shoulder and said, “We’ve got to go. Right now.”

Yasha came out of nowhere, “What’s going on?”

“Cops. We gotta hurry.” He started to pull Jester away.

“I left something on the roof.” Fjord decided he didn’t have the time to wait for her and started leading Jester and Nott out before the place became a mad house. Fjord heard Nott calling out Caleb’s name as they walked out and while of course he wanted to wait for him but they had to get out.

When they got outside they saw Molly on the sidewalk, looking at the house. “Oh. Good. We should definitely leave,” he said when he saw them. He started walking away from the house and Fjord, Jester, and Nott followed him.

There was a loud sound, not an explosion but definitely more fire, and then some yelling and screaming, and the four of them decided to start running. Molly decided to trip the person running next to them.

 

Mollymauk Tealeaf liked parties. The carnival was like a big party for customers, but it was always work for him, so when he got to be a guest he liked to take full advantage of it. The only issue was that he had high standards, he believed parties should be more than beer, there should be some entertainment.

It took longer to get to that point than it usually did, which was probably a good thing because it gave them more time before the fire started.

Molly’s look was…exactly what one would expect of Molly. There were purples and blues and reds, gold and silver, the decorative tips of his horns shone, his eyeliner was perfect. You couldn’t pass Molly without staring. And he knew it. And he thrived with it.

Molly’s first stop was to the kitchen where he made himself a delightfully fruity and lovely drink (nobody was quite sure where he got the ingredients to make it, but nobody asked). And after that he went on the prowl. With this many bedrooms it seemed a shame not to put one to use himself.

And there was a lovely half-orc who he had been trying to flirt with for the last couple days who he figured now would be as good a time as any to be a little more obvious about it.

He went up to Fjord and he smirked playfully, “I thought I’d offer you a private reading if you wanted one?”

Fjord cleared his throat and he nervously looked away from the expanse of lavender skin that Molly may have been flaunting. “I—no I think I’ll pass.”

Molly didn’t feel disappointed by his answer, whether it was because Fjord didn’t like him, because Fjord only liked women, or Fjord just needed more time, it wasn’t Molly’s business and it wasn’t a problem. Sure, Fjord was handsome and charming, but Molly had met plenty handsome and charming people.

Molly shrugged and moved on, perhaps he would try again later. It didn’t take much time to find a man who was pointedly not looking his way while his friends were giggling and looking at him very obviously while they leaned in and whispered to him. It was adorable and Molly was not about to disappoint.

He sauntered up to the small group of friends and the young man looked up to him with wide eyes and his cheeks turned bright red. “My my, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen someone more in need of an experienced fortune teller like me.”

Molly watched him lick his lips and he said, “To read my fortune?”

“If you want,” Molly replied cheekily.

His friends elbowed him and nodded, made small comments. “Yeah? What uh, what did you have in mind?” He had a small smile.

“Well,” Molly pulled his tarot cards out and began spreading them out and shuffling them in his hands, doing small but interesting looking tricks. “We could go upstairs where it’s not so crowded, you pull a few cards, and we see where we go from there.”

After a push or two from his friends and some excited whoops as they went upstairs together they found an unoccupied bedroom upstairs and the man, who Molly had learned the name of at this point was sitting on the bed across from Molly.

It was a typical card reading, very similar to the one he had given Jester, but more charged. The “cards” spoke of passion, of spontaneity, and unexpected adventures.

He was in the middle of explaining the first card, with a low voice and sultry eyes and planning on touching his knee at the end when the door was thrown open and Beau stood in the doorway.

She looked at Molly like she was debating her next move, then, in complete Beau fashion which Molly hated, she walked in despite the obvious scene unravelling in this room. She didn’t even apologize as she walked to the balcony across the room. The man Molly had brought upstairs pretended not to pay attention to Beau while Molly looked with open disdain. He watched Beau climb up on the railing and yell “Cannonball!” and then jump. Molly secretly hoped she misjudged her jump, but a splash told him she made it.

He was in the middle of talking about the third one when the door opened again.

“You are doing a card reading!” Jester exclaimed as she rushed over and jumped onto the bed beside the man Molly was talking to.

Molly was much less irritated by Jester being there. Perhaps another day he would have invited her to stay, but not this time. Instead he smiled to his handsome friend and said, “Yes, I am.”

“Do me next!” Jester was practically vibrating with excitement and Molly had a very hard time not making a sly comment about how that could be arranged.

“Another time perhaps. But right now I’m in the middle of something,” he said while very obviously checking his man out.

Jester’s eyes looked back and forth between the two of them and then her eyes went wide and she smiled, “Ohhh,” she winked at Molly in a way that would have made the overdramatics of the carnival look normal. “Right.”

He laughed, “Why don’t you go to the pool?” He almost rolled his eyes. “Beau’s already down there.”

“Yes, I will go do that. Right now.” She winked again, a little more subtly this time, and started her way to the door. Then she suddenly stopped and said, “Oh wait.” And pulled pictures of someone out and started taping them up around the room. Then when she was finished she waved goodbye and finally left the room.

To get back on track Molly walked over to the balcony, closed the glass door in as sexy a way as he could, and turned back to his companion. “I also do lip readings,” he said with a devilish smile and a fun flick of his tail.

“Lip readings?” His eyebrow quirked up and he smiled back at Molly with a knowing twinkle in his eye.

“Yeah. All we have to do is kiss and I can tell you what the next hour of your life is going to be like with devastating accuracy. Completely free of charge, of course.” He gave a sultry wink and the man laughed and crooked his finger to beckon Molly back over to the bed.

“That sounds like a pretty good deal.”

And about an hour later both Molly and his new friend felt the cards and the “lip reading” had been right. They exchanged numbers and talked a little more before they returned to the party.

Everywhere Molly went there was another picture of Nicholas Cage, which he quite enjoyed, it was expertly done by Jester and he had a feeling this Matthew Mercer would be finding these pictures for months.

Molly grew bored of the party rather quickly and soon was on his phone calling in a favor. Within the next hour he was helping his friends carry boxes to the backyard. Yasha saw him and gave him an approving nod and continued on her way with a keg on her shoulder.

Molly helped set it up, but really he liked standing back and supervising. And in no time the king of all bounce houses was in the backyard. The carnival had been setting it up less and less lately, it wasn’t the hit it used to be, but Molly had a feeling it was exactly what this party needed to liven itself up. Well, that and the wonderful three friends who had come to show off their new bit. Fire breathing. They had assured Molly they finally had it figured out, no pesky issues anymore.

They were very very wrong.

Everything went very quickly after that. People were loving the bounce house, more than a little beer was spilled in it, everyone was loving the little magic tricks and small acrobatic moves that the carnies were doing. Things were going about as well as Molly thought they would, which was really well. And then really bad.

Someone—Molly thought she said her name was Allura—ran outside when she saw the _controlled_ flames yelling, “I SAID NO FIRE EATING IN THE BACKYARD!”

Which made one of the carnies cough. Which made things get kind of out of control when he dropped his stick, when he accidentally bumped one of the others, which accidentally fell and hit the side of the bounce house. Molly couldn’t be sure what part started it or where exactly it happened, but soon more was on fire than was supposed to be. And at about the same time sirens could be heard in the not far enough distance.

Molly wasted no time turning around and walking to the front of the house. Before he left completely he looked behind him one last time to the steadily growing fire, thought about his options, and decided that yes, running in another direction was the best idea.

When he looked back he saw Fjord with Jester and Nott in tow. “Oh. Good. We should definitely leave.” He started a brisk walk in the opposite direction.

There was a lot of noise behind them and Molly took the initiative to start running. And when he realized the person next to them was faster he made the executive decision to save them all by tripping this man and slowing him down.

He hit the ground with a yelp and a thump and then nothing.

“Molly!” Fjord said and halted to a stop. “You can’t do that shit!” He grabbed the tall, lanky man and threw him over his shoulder and they started running again.

 

Yasha (carrying Beau) was catching up to the rest of the group (Caleb still a little farther back) when Molly said, “He could have slowed the cops down!”

“He has a point!” Jester added.

“Oh gods, do you think he’s dead?’ Nott’s voice was shrill and panicked.

“Dead? Wait, what’s going on?” Caleb asked as he finally caught up, panting heavily.

“He’s not dead!” Fjord said, “Molly just knocked him down.”

“Use him as a distraction, good plan,” Yasha said without really any emotion in her voice.

“Not a good plan!” Fjord grunted as he switched the thin boy to his other shoulder.

“Perhaps you should let me carry him,” Jester offered but didn’t really give him the option when she stopped and held her arms out for him.

“I have to agree with Fjord,” Caleb took the momentary pause where Fjord was transferring the unconscious man over to Jester to double over and try and catch his breath.

“We can’t just go around knocking people down and leaving them for the cops!” Fjord said, pushing aside at the pure awe that he felt when Jester started running with him on her shoulder like he weighed absolutely nothing. It was like watching Yasha with Beau. Effortless. Which was unexpected because Jester was small and filled with pastries, she didn’t look like she could do that.

The man groaned as he woke up, “What—what is going on?”

“We are, uh—” Jester paused while she thought up a good answer, “we are saving you. From the cops. And the fire.”

He looked around, his long hair falling in his face. “Shit. My house. And you,” he looked at Molly who feigned the best ‘Who, me?’ face he could do while running. “you tripped me.”

“Well, to be fair I thought you would get back up,” Molly answered honestly.

“What the hell happened?” He asked.

“You said it was your house?” Caleb asked.

“Yeah, yeah I’m Matt.”

“You’re Matthew Mercer?” Nott piped up, “You don’t look like I thought you would.”

“I uh, get that a lot? What happened?”

“We may have set up a bounce house and started a fire, but to be fair someone else called the cops.” Yasha didn’t pull any of the punches.

Matt laughed, full out laughed, well as well as he could on someone’s shoulder like that. “Gods, I have to admit this is the craziest party I’ve ever had. Well, other than the time a friend of mine went next door, polymorphed into a triceratops, and set their house on fire.”

Fjord looked at Caleb with wide eyes that said, ‘What the _fuck_?’

“That sounds amazing,” Jester said.

“Yeah, it was,” Matt said with a small smile. “We did a lot of crazy things.”

In all honesty they probably could have stopped running by this point, but they were in the groove now.

“It certainly sounds like it,” Molly said with a laugh. “I would have liked to meet that man.”

“He probably would have liked you.” There was a pause, perhaps a second longer than it should have been, and then Matt said, “The rent on that place is awfully expensive without seven or eight people to help with it. And it’s way too big for someone like me. And I don’t know if you noticed, but I don’t really like being the star of my own parties. My old friends used to do that part for me, like you all did tonight. So I guess my question is,” he took a deep breath, “Would you guys want to maybe move off campus and host parties with me on Thursday nights?”

 

It was a weird question to ask strangers who technically set fire to your backyard, especially after one knocked you down to leave you for the cops. But Matt had a gut feeling, it was the same feeling he had when he had first met his old friends. That party had been almost as dramatic as this one.

And it was even weirder to say yes, but the dorms weren’t exactly the place anyone wanted to live if they could help it and if you left within the first week you got a full refund on the housing. And technically they didn’t have to pay a lot in rent at all, Matt’s old friend Percy actually owned it and was letting Matt stay free of charge, Matt only wanted to help give something back because he felt guilty about it. And of course his new friends had no issue helping with that.

It was silly and nobody understood it, but sometimes you have to go with your gut.

And every Thursday night they invited everyone they knew to come hang out at their place, though hopefully less fire in the future.


End file.
